General Hardly any power in low gear

[Suzybloo]

When our five year old diesel multi is in a low gear, especially when it's cold, it has hardly any power. Eventually it gets better as the car warms up but i'd say even when warm it's not got the revs it should have. I can put my foot to the floor and it just crawls until it feels like speeding up a bit. It's very embarrassing if someone's behind me as they must be wondering why I'm accelerating so incredibly slowly!
We've had it at the Fiat garage who ran their diagnostics for 30 minutes and couldn't find anything. They're now proposing to have it for a couple of hours at some extortionate charge to poke around a bit more. Frankly I don't trust them (no bad experiences in the past or anything...!) so I'd love it if anyone could suggest what might be wrong or if they've had the same problem. Our local garage is game to look at it but if we could point him in a possible right direction it would be very helpful.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Suzybloo]

I should have said that it also smokes a lot when the power is low. The garage's diagnosis was that its power is low and it smokes a lot! That's why we took it to them, not for them to tell us the symptoms but to find out WHY!

 

[Ffoxy]

Hi!
Try a Search on this site for EGR or MAF problems & see if they sound the same or similar to your woes & come back to us.

 

[momoe]

Could also be the small hose from the turbo to the boost valve is leaking, loads of advice on the forum for this but it's usually a small red hose/tube that runs from a sensor down low below the left side of the battery to the turbo.
Any leaks and you don't get the turbo boost you're expecting.

 

[nathonjones]

We have a 55 Multipla JTD and it did exactly the same.
Turned out the injectors were clogged.
We regularly put diesel injector cleaner in with our fuel and, after about 2-3 weeks, that solved the problem.

As you say, it's very embarrassing when you have a big line of traffic behind you! Just when someone goes to overtake you, suddenly the engine kicks in and you look like a right prat!

It's all a bit dangerous to be honest and, from talking to others, this isn't an isolated problem but I guess, being 5 years old, Fiat can just wash their hands of it.

Hope this helps.
Nath.

 

[Suzybloo]

Well, the garage had it for a couple of hours, with your helpful suggestions, and have decided it has an electrical fault to the EGR. They've ordered wiring diagrams from Fiat. I'm not convinced I want to give them any more money when they clearly don't really have a clue what's wrong.

I'd be interested in trying the fuel additive. Does it go suddenly right or is there a gradual improvement? It's something we might try while the garage has a think about the electricals and if we saw an improvement we wouldn't need to go back to them.

 

[nathonjones]

It won't fix it suddenly, no. You need to add it, and don't be shy with it, and let it run for a good few days before it will improve the problem (assuming that this is the actual issue).

You then need to keep adding the fuel additive on a regular basis in order to prevent the problem re-occuring.

I hope that solves it for you. We also found Fiat completely unhelpful with the matter. It took a mechanic friend of ours to point out that it might be clogged injectors (why couldn't Fiat spot that?).

Hope this helps.
Nath.

 

[Suzybloo]

We've added the injector cleaner so fingers crossed. The engine is slightly better since the EGR was cleaned out, so I'm not convinced that the problem is the wiring, which is what Fiat thinks. It's booked in for the wiring 'problem' to be fixed on Tuesday but if we see a significant improvement by then we won't take it in.

I don't understand why neither our local garage nor the Fiat garage suggested getting the injectors cleaned. Apart from anything it's such a cheap thing to try first, and our local man is usually very good at offering the cheap fix first. Maybe I put him off by suggesting it was the engine management system.

 

[Suzybloo]

Well, the Fiat garage has had it three times. The first time they took two hours to describe the fault it had come in with. The second time they checked the EGR, at my husband's suggestion, cleaned it, said it was working and claimed there was a wiring fault. Today they had it again for most of the day, decided it wasn't a wiring problem but that it needs a new EGR! It's a good job I wasn't there. There might have been bloodshed. They have charged us about £350 to possibly discover what WE suggested was wrong in the first place. They are absolutely useless. My husband is disputing the charge but at best I expect we'll only get a bit knocked off the price. Needless to say they won't be fitting a new EGR valve. Is it likely that it needs a new one? Do they wear out? It's been cleaned. Before they cleaned it they said it definitely worked!:bang:

 

[Suzybloo]

The General Manager rang up and refunded today's money but thinks the rest of their work satisfactory, which includes doing nothing for two hours (charged). And he thinks that thanks to his generosity we're going to let them have our car for another day (not sure why it always takes them a day to do two hours' work) and pay over the odds to them for a new EGR. If the injector cleaner doens't work, and we are seeing some improvement, our local man will get the job.

I don't understand how such garages keep going. They never do anything right. Who uses them, apart from cars under warranty? Not only are they useless at mending cars but their customer service is terrible. For example, they promised my husband they'd phone when the car was done but they just didn't, and couldn't see anything wrong with that!

 

[midayt47]

i have that problem for one year. i checked everthing but couldn't find eneything. EGR is cleaned and blocked. MAF replaced Map replaced. Checked all hoses for a split or something but nothingg. I have no power in low rev till +-2000rpm then is the power back.
Last time a JTD!!!:devil:

 

[Bloog]

I had this problem with my JTD a couple of years ago, except the power went as we were going along, and Fiat didn't really tell me what the problem was, only that I had to go in another day as they had to download some software, and they didn't have access to the internet!

Your dealership's attitude and diagnostic skills sound exactly the same as my dealership. I wonder if it's the same one, or just Fiat's special customer training!

 

[Suzybloo]

Well it went quite nicely for a bit but has lost power again now. I think we'll try more cleaner though. Maybe it's really dirty and it's not all completely gone.